Microwave measurement system for dispersive dielectric properties of densely packed pellets

Journal article, 2017

We present a microwave measurement system that is intended for the estimation of the dispersive dielectric properties for densely packed pellets. In particular, we estimate the Debye parameters for the effective permittivity of a mixture of air and densely packed moist microcrystalline cellulose pellets for the frequency band 2.7–5.1 GHz. The Debye parameters are estimated by means of minimizing the misfit between the measured scattering parameters and the corresponding computed response given a model of the measurement system. This minimization is performed by means of a nonlinear iterative optimization procedure, which is supported by continuum sensitivities, and the optimum is found in 10–60 iterations for the cases presented in this article. We find that increasing moisture content yields an increase in the static permittivity and a decrease in the relaxation time.